Only one of the 37 who have died didn’t have some kind of medical problem such as diabetes or heart disease, Mayor Ron Nirenberg said.

“The health professionals have been saying all along that this disease is particularly harmful for people who have underlying health conditions,” Nirenberg said. “It’s of concern for a community like ours because we have such high rates of diabetes and other chronic conditions.”

Late Wednesday, family and friends confirmed that Live Oak City Councilman Anthony Brooks died of COVID-19 on Tuesday night; his partner, Phillip Tsai-Brooks, died Easter after suffering a heart attack, a complication of COVID-19. Both had been in the hospital, receiving care after testing positive for the virus.

A first responder (in vehicle) gets tested for COVID-19 by medical technicians at a drive-thru location in the Texas Medical Center in March.

Photo: Robin Jerstad /Contributor

San Antonio reported 75 new cases of COVID-19 Wednesday, pushing the total to 890.

The number of new cases was considerably higher than it has been in recent days — there were only 21 new cases Tuesday and 22 on Monday. Nirenberg attributed Wednesday’s high number to an influx of test results that had been lagging.

Nirenberg and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff plan to convene a panel of medical experts today to analyze that data in the hopes of figuring out when leaders can safely begin to lift stay-at-home restrictions, slowly allowing business activity to resume.

“It’s not going to be overnight,” Wolff said. “It’s not going to be without consequences. And we’re all going to have to be extremely careful.”

Officials with San Antonio and Bexar County are keeping in touch with leaders in other major Texas cities to try to make sure they all begin to lift those restrictions intended to curb the spread of the virus around the same time, Nirenberg said.

“You know how many tens of thousands of people travel between here and Austin,” Nirenberg said. “All it takes for an outbreak between Austin and San Antonio is one infected person to be traveling prematurely because things have opened up sooner than maybe they should have.”

Local leaders are also trying not to run afoul of efforts by Gov. Greg Abbott to “reopen” the economy.

“We don’t want to get into conflict there,” Wolff said. “He gave us leeway to do what we needed to do when we had the stay-at-home order. We’re going to have to work with him (to) have a plan that works for him as well as for us.”

Wednesday’s update showed 77 people who tested positive for COVID-19 are in the hospital, a dozen fewer than Tuesday. Of those, there also are fewer in intensive care, 50 on Wednesday compared to 54 on Tuesday, and 36 are on ventilators to help them breathe.

Nirenberg noted that 147 Bexar County residents have recovered from the disease.

The figures released Wednesday show that 39 percent of the county’s cases stem from close contact with someone who already had the disease, while 32 percent caught the virus through “community spread,” meaning the source of infection is unknown.